Women’s Youth Coaching Course ends

Seven others of the class received certificates of participation.Demaine, who doubles as the OFC Women’s Development Officer, has been in the territory for two weeks organizing two back-to-back courses that started with a grassroots one from July 18-21.“This course is focusing mainly on the youth, girls from 12-19 and this deals with a little bit more complicated techniques because the age group is a lot older than the grassroots level,” she said. “They need to know a lot of age appropriate ways of coaching these young girls.”Demaine said that the biggest message to the class of 24 participants is to “challenge themselves as coaches as well as challenging the best players to be better because you can be the best player on island but will that level compare competitively to the Oceania and worldwide levels?”The four-day long course covered theoretical and practical sessions with the participants organizing coaching sessions in groups and were assessed individually.“This is one of the better classes in the islands that I have worked with and I’ve got two more to do,” Demaine said during the closing of the course. “I want you all to take what you have learnt and use it in your coaching.”Iuli Alex Godinet, FFAS President, opened and then officially closed the course with a message of thanks to all the participants for taking part in it.“I know it is not easy for a lot of you because some have to work during the day so thank you for taking time off of work for this,” he said. “I also hope that we will start seeing young ladies play much better in our upcoming competitions.”Participants included members from FFAS clubs as well as school teachers or individuals representing schools.“Our development of this sport never rests and this includes soccer for females as well,” Iuli pointed out. “So be productive as coaches, whether it be for the grassroots or for youth levels.”FFAS Technical Director Ruben Luvu assisted Demaine during the course as well as FFAS Women’s Development Officer Naomi Oney and FFAS Goalkeeper Coach Uinifareti Aliva.Demaine departed American Samoa on Thursday, July 26, 2012.

About FFAS

A territory with just 70,000 people and an area of 199km², American Samoa is traditionally strong in sports such as gridiron, basketball and baseball but football is starting to take over these popular pastimes. The strength of the game is at the youth level where Football Federation American Samoa (FFAS) has worked hard to establish competitions within schools. Under the tutelage of President Iuli Alex Godinet.